Saturday, December 01, 2018

Dick’s Sporting Goods took a firm, anti-gun stance. Oh, it’ll still sell guns, but it’ll only sell “approved” guns, the kind that anti-gunners generally pretend are fine. At least until they get around to demanding those be banned too.

When Dick’s made its announcement that it would not sell AR-15s at any of its stores going forward and that it would discriminate against legal adults looking to buy long guns, gun rights advocates called for a boycott. It was answered. So much so that the company has been reeling from the lost revenues.

It’s now to the point that the company is considering cutting out all of its hunting merchandise.

They might as well. Those customers are gone, they are never coming back, and there will be no new customers to replace them.

66 Comments:

It wasn't that they stopped selling AR-15's that drove me away, it was the smug virtue signaling around it. I bought a nice higher end baseball glove from them earlier that year. Never going back for any reason.

They are going for the blue hair pink hat hunting crowd, let's see how it works out for them.

@1 They could have said they were cutting weapon sales to focus on sports and outfitting, and most people wouldn't have noticed. Instead they just can't help announcing how much more virtuous they are than you.

Justin Bailey wrote:@1 They could have said they were cutting weapon sales to focus on sports and outfitting, and most people wouldn't have noticed. Instead they just can't help announcing how much more virtuous they are than you.

Unlike the leftist trumpets, the right just went to Cabelas, Bass Pro, or their local dealers and avoided Dick's. The left deals with virtue signal extortion like Jesse Jackson PUSHes. The right just stops shopping at places that hate them. Permanently.

They grew enamored of the high margins they received on their outdoor apparel and golf supplies. And forgot who most of their base clientele was made up of. Management is so far removed from the type of person who shopped at Dicks. They made a decision that was popular with their friends and family. None of whom would want to be seen with the type of people who hunt and fish.

You would think there would be enough examples by now, but apparently we will have to burn through virtually every large company before the message is made crystal clear. The fact that even Star Wars was ruined should have been the end of it, but NPC types simply cannot deviate from their programming.

@23 JAG and others: I don't think you understand, these people would much rather lose money than status. Star Wars, though, was deliberately ruined, too "good", white, and male for Kathleen "The Force is Female" Kennedy and the hacks she hired. I'm sure the (((leadership))) of Walt Disney is not entirely displeased as well.

There are a couple of these stores within 5 miles of me. I used to go in to buy ammo, other sporting goods and workout clothes mostly because their locations are very convenient for me. But since their show of political correctness I not only don't buy ammo there, I don't go in their stores at all.

Ever since seeing that CNN meme that showed the religious affiliation of its main TV personalities, I've thought it'd be nice to have an app that lets me know where and I do not want to spend my money.

Not watching SoyWars for example. Or patroning SoyBucks. Or Dickless'es. Of course, living overseas I don't have this problem, but anyway. Time is short, lets try not to feed the enemy'' army....

While the Academy Sports still sells guns and ammunition, they are largely a sports clothing store. The Academy near me is always full of illegals buying shoes and urban youth buying sports clothing.

While I had occasionally gone into Dick's to buy minor things, I have never gone into a Dick's since late 2012 when they canceled the orders of customers who had ordered and paid for AR-15s during their Black Friday sale.

It's nice to see the right boycotting things, but confusing to see them boycotting Dick's effectively for their anti-gun stance, yet doing nothing to boycott hollywood despite it's anti-literally-everything-good stance.

Such a dumb stance that in the end also hurts the employees who may need or want a job and communities that get some tax revenue from their business.

The sort of people who are willing to work at a store that sells guns and hunting stuff? The owners probably hate them even more than they hate gun owners, since they have a direct and constant relationship with them that they can't escape until they're "forced" to lay them off. Communities which have significant populations of gun owners and hunters? Also something they hate.

Used to be a regular customer there, however, usually for workout gear and equipment and not for guns (Bass Pro!). I haven’t spent a dime there since their virtue signal and am glad to see that others are doing the same.

"Such a dumb stance that in the end also hurts the employees who may need or want a job and communities that get some tax revenue from their business."

Leftists consider that to be a feature, not a bug. Remember, they ABHOR rural people just as much as Lenin wanted every Kulak not just dead, but dead AND FORGOTTEN, and he wasn't too wild about farmers, either.

@59:IIRC, due to their idiocy regarding their first AR-15 screwup (see#45), no vendor would sell them any guns without a "no-return" contract. No idea if they are able to wholesale them to try to recover costs, but virtue signaling might have been their only legal recourse.BTW, there are very specific legal rules to follow when destroying guns. I suspect that Dicks is unaware of this.

"They're so anti-gun they didn't just cut evil black rifles from their offerings, they cut up their inventory of them. Physically destroyed them."

That's what they say. I doubt it unless someone shows me video of Dick's personnel, in company attire, doing so.

If so, that they felt like virtue signaling this is still telling.

@63 Will:

@59:IRC, due to their idiocy regarding their first AR-15 screwup (see#45), no vendor would sell them any guns without a "no-return" contract. No idea if they are able to wholesale them to try to recover costs, but virtue signaling might have been their only legal recourse.

Hard to imagine their being so stupid as to sign contacts that they couldn't sell off surplus inventory, but nothing we've seen about their handling of guns shows them being smart about business.